"I'll fix him," says the operator, and charged along down the platform with the preacher suffering after him.
That night operator, Mr. Mose Bowles, surging along the platform to Ryan's car, would have bet his last dollar that the facts were true. He saw three sure-enough cowboys sitting their horses easy in front of the private car, and the preacher was plumb correct about the way they talked. Bowles saw the prisoner, bound hand and foot, on a led horse, and that was Jim beyond all doubt, looking plenty discouraged. Bowles knew that Ryan had offered rewards most bounteous for Jim's body; he hungered for a portion of the plunder, and when he swung himself up the platform on the end of the car his batterings on the door was full of enthusiasm.
"I feah," says the preacher, "that yo're spoiling the paint. Take thought, my friend, how expensive is paint like that!"
The cowboys were backing their horses away beyond range of the car lamps, out of sight.
"Mr. Ryan!" Bowles shouted, "urgent telegrams! Come out!"
A nigger porter slid open an inch of the door. "You go way," says he; "Mass' Ryan he plumb distrackful. Go 'way."
"Let me in, you fool!"
Bowles wrenched the door wide open, and jumped into the car; then there were mutterings and voices, the lighting up of the far end of the Pullman; and after a while came a fat young man bustling out on the platform. He wore a fur coat, bare legs, and slippers, cussing around most peevish.
"'Scuse me," says the preacher, "I am an unworthy minister, a 'Ticular Baptist, and I could not heah the feahful profanity of these rude men without shedding tears. May I esco't you, seh, to see this prisoner?"
Bowles and the negro stood on the car platform watching, while the preacher led Ryan off into starlight.